I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it’s pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that’d be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can’t ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning “swimming” made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

  • SeaJ@lemm.ee
    3·
    1 year ago

    Same in the US. Most schools do not have their own pool and swimming is not a required skill. Tons of people don’t know how to swim here.

    • notepass@feddit.de
      3·
      1 year ago

      Many schools in Germany also do not have their own pools. You will be transported on a bus to the closest one.

      • tryptaminev@feddit.de
        1·
        1 year ago

        There is schools with their own pool? Heck, half the inner city schools dont have a proper gym hall and use public ones.

        • notepass@feddit.de
          1·
          1 year ago

          I think one of the schools close to mine actually had their own pool for some reason. We always went there.